In his second novel, Reif Larsen (The Selected Works of T.S. Spivet) has woven a story of Homeric proportions. I Am Radar is about electricity. From New Jersey to Cambodia and throughout the 20th century, Larsen recounts the lives of people connected by a secret Norwegian organization formed during World War II and known as Kirkenesferda. It's a wild ride with an unconventional structure and enormous cast of unforgettable characters.
A white couple living in New Jersey gives birth to a black son. Not just a boy darker than his parents, but a child with skin and hair black as night. When a letter arrives from Norway offering a possible "cure," his mother insists on responding, and soon the family finds themselves on an all-expenses-paid trip to the Arctic Circle, where the members of Kirkenesferda await them. The mad scientists charm both parents, who allow Radar to undergo a procedure intended to change his skin color.
The novel shifts to 1975 Bosnia, where three-year-old Miroslav has just swallowed a key. That boy and his brother grow up to play very different roles in the civil war that tears their country to pieces. Later, Larsen takes the reader south to Cambodia in 1953, where a tiny baby becomes the subject of an experiment in scientific child-rearing. These historical digressions alternate with the continuing saga of Radar's life.
Larsen's prose is straightforward and bold, full of sparkling phrases. Wise yet unpretentious, both broad and deep, I Am Radar will slake the most unquenchable thirst for storytelling and open the reader's eyes to new possibilities in fiction. --Emma Page, bookseller at Wellesley Books, Wellesley, Mass.